


Split the Bill

by waferkya



Category: Social Network (2010)
Genre: Fix-It, Gen, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-25
Updated: 2012-05-25
Packaged: 2017-11-06 00:20:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/412645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waferkya/pseuds/waferkya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eduardo is angry. Mark probably thinks that 'apologize' is Italian for 'fork'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Split the Bill

The room is shrinking; it's like some sort of nightmare, or one of those fright houses at fun fairs, where all the ghosts shout the same metallic shriek and fake cobweb shines a sick shade of green just everywhere, only this time he is awake and this is very much a real place, bricks and concrete and bulletproof glass (Sean thought it was _gangsta_ , which is just another word for cool, and therefore mandatory) and no rusty gears to keep the ceiling up just enough not to squash his bones.

The only time Mark's parents ever took him to a luna park, he nearly gave the clowns a nervous breakdown. (Not his fault, of course; the knotted balloon they so much insisted for him to take home could only resemble a dog if the poor animal'd been in some sort of tragically weird anatomical experiment, and Mark had simply observed so. He really, honestly can't be blamed if the truth coming out his seven year old mouth was too much to bear for the weird guys in the giant shoes.) (Also he suspects now they might have been high on something.)

He's not worried, anyway, not because he's not afraid of death and pain, but because hell, he's been up coding for three days straight now, so it's okay if he hallucinates a bit, and frankly, he has no energy to be scared. There's more beer and Red Bull in his body than flesh and bones, but it's okay; Facebook needs him, he lost so many data when his laptop got smashed so he has to type, he has to rewrite and betatest and never to tear his eyes off the screen because there's a lot of work to do and no-one he trusts to do it except himself.

And then Mark blinks, for what feels like—and probably is—the first time in hours.

Dustin has been calling his name for the last five minutes.

"Why are you still here?" he asks, face crumpled with worry, but all Mark notices is the tall brown paper cup he's holding. His hand automatically reaches out, even though Dustin's favourite coffee is too sweet and not nearly enough caffeinated, but Dustin takes a step back, pulls a stern face. "Nuh-uh, Mark, no way you're getting coffee right now. How long've you been here? Did you even _leave_?"

"Yeah," Mark says, mostly because he wants coffee. It's not even a lie, anyway; last week he went home for the grand total of eleven and a half hours, mind you.

Dustin squints at him, his eyebrows ridiculously expressive.

"I mean in the last three days, Mark. Seriously, what is _wrong_ with you? Do you have any idea what time is it?"

Mark knows perfectly well; it's sixteen-past-eight, which means Dustin is early as usual, and also that the cleaning ladies have come and left and Mark didn't even notice.

"C'mon," Dustin says, wrinkling his nose and grabbing Mark by his arms to make him stand up. "You're going home."

* * *

Dustin is a good friend, which, in Mark's world, mostly means three things: he pays his own drinks and food when they go out (or at least he did at Harvard); he doesn't steal Mark's Red Vines while he's asleep; he doesn't freeze bank accounts behind his back.

He is a good friend. (He's also a terrible person, because sometimes he listens to music without headphones and he's kind of whiny and too touchy-feely for his own good, and also, Mark is not really a hundred percent sure he's not the Red Vine thief after all; but it's okay, in a way—because Mark maybe is a dick but he knows you can't be _that_ picky with friends, when all you've got is the spectacular amount of two. And Chris mainly talks to him via e-mail, so.)

He drives Mark home and puts him to bed and tells him to stay there, no computer, no coding, no nothing, just lay down and try to sleep. Mark crosses his fingers on his stomach to keep them from twitching—he went stone cold with the sleep of the dead in the car already, even though Dustin didn't realize it, a little too focused on traffic and rambling about how insane Mark is getting lately,—and engages in another staring contest with the ceiling.

The ceiling is losing, and Mark doesn't really see it anymore.

He's thinking of Facebook; he's thinking of lines of code and the new user interface and all the features he could implement in ten years. He's thinking maybe he should start keeping track of how much he types every day—Chris used to stick photos and charts and flyers to the minifridge in their room at Kirkland, and it was pretty nice. Mark's fridge could use a Worlds' Record parchment, some magnets.

His brain feels almost dizzy, but it keeps going; Mark is tired but passing out in the car took care of his sleepiness, and he should probably grab his computer, get some work done. Yeah, he should.

The thing with Mark is that, lately, he's been more restless than ever. He barely noticed the change, of course, because it's not like he goes to school or is training for a marathon, he doesn't have a schedule; he codes, wired in for the most part of his waking hours, and it's so easy to lose track of—of everything else, really, but mostly of himself.

So, he doesn't know, or maybe he does and refuses to acknowledge it; he's always been good at that. He's not okay, not even for his standards, and it's not like he's going to realize it any soon. His body will be nice and cold six feet under before Mark Zuckeberg realizes he's been up way past his bedtime.

This is part of who he is, really; a sniper's rifle aiming at the designated victim's center of mass doesn't get any more focused than Mark usually is. It was never this much of an issue, before; Mark would be in bed long before he started growing so tired that even sleeping felt too much of an effort.

He's never had this many weird, spinning thoughts—and memories, and unspoken words clogged in the back of his mind,—trying to pry his attention away from what's more important—Facebook, his work, coding; eating, once in a while, and sleeping in the shower to save time.

He's never missed anyone the way he misses Wardo.

* * *

There's this girl Eduardo has been seeing in the past couple of days. She's blonde, leggy, and she smiles a lot; he needed to detox himself from Christy, wake up from the nightmare he feels he's been trapped in ever since he came to see Mark in California, and this girl—Rachel, her name-tag says,—and her easy, adorable little laughter are a good medicine.

Plus, she makes a mean cappuccino, which is another reason for Eduardo to keep coming back to the little, quiet café she works at, even though it's a twenty-five minutes walk from his place, at a steady pace. He tried to drive here once, and it took him two hours, most of which he spent stuck in traffic trying to find a spot to park his car.

Eduardo hates America so much, right now. He also hates the world, and all the people in it, especially those who try to sneak into the queue before him, or those annoying businessmen who keep coughing and coughing very impolitely while he's chatting with Rachel at the register; he hates Mark, too, a lot, and sometimes—most of the times, really, with no reason in particular except maybe the force of habit,—he hates himself.

Eduardo is nervous and angry and desperate, but not when he's talking to other people; he gets nice and happy and warm and distracted, then, the perfect gentleman, so he talks to strangers a lot. He hangs around bookshops and cafés and parks and he's thinking about getting a dog because isn't a cute little puppy the best icebreaker? He tells himself he's polishing his people skills for no reason. And it works, it really does.

It masks the ragged hollow inside his chest beautifully.

* * *

Realisation hits Mark like the punch Eduardo never really buried into his stomach; the profile page should have a text box to let people display their favourite witty quotes. Nothing fancy, no HTML nor scripts—just a small little something, very customizable but not so much really.

It's genius.

* * *

It's one week before the lawsuit, and the only reason why Mark knows that is because Dustin took him out to buy a tie—no headphones, no coding allowed, and he actually had to pick one himself,—and kept babbling about it over and over again. He didn't exactly pay attention, okay, but somehow that bit of information slipped under his skin and now here he is, glaring at a chocolate éclair like it ate his cat, counting the minutes to the next time he's going to be in the same room as Wardo.

He sincerely hopes no laptop smashing will take place, but he can't really be sure.

Dustin pokes his arm.

"You gonna eat that?" he asks, pointing at the fat pastry sitting in front of Mark, dripping cream like it's the end of the world.

Mark shrughs his _of course not_ ; Dustin enthusiastically sinks in the cake; Eduardo walks into the café—Mark only notices because he's been staring at the door, trying to will it to come to him and let him out. He's insanely grateful he didn't go tie shopping with Sean.

Eduardo walks to the counter, smiles brightly at the girl in the ridiculous acid green apron; they appear to be chatting like old friends, and Mark inspects all the windows in the café with careful eyes, looking for neatly-written equations. He finds none, and then his chest unclenches a little.

Eduardo gets his coffee and heads out of the shop, not without dropping a lot of smiles and exchanging some words with an old, grey man sitting in a corner not too far from Mark and Dustin's table. He doesn't see them; even worse, he doesn't _sense_ them, he doesn't sense Mark nor the fact that he hasn't slept in twenty-five hours and fifty-six minutes.

Mark is upset. He doesn't have any other word for it.

* * *

It's four days before the lawsuit, and Mark is not working or sleeping or eating or taking a shower; he's not going over the notes Sy—his lawyer; he's the only person whose name Mark has kept in mind from the beginning because, well, it's ridiculous and also very easy,—gave him, he's not ironing his tie; he's walking.

His hands pushed deep down the front pocket of his old, ratty grey sweater, bright white socks and sandals flopping against his heels at every step, it almost feels like he never left Harvard. He walks, stares at the trees and the cars and only a minimum fraction of his thoughts are about Facebook or bright green lines of code on a black screen; he's getting sentimental.

Wardo has an apartment in a tower-like building with a garden on the roof; Mark stares for a moment, and then a businessman clearly late for work runs out of the main door, and Mark just slips inside.

His sandals make a sloppy, dry sound against the marble pavements; Mark takes the elevator because there's no way he's walking up fourteen floors.

Wardo opens almost instantly, like he was chilling right on the other side of the door; he's wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt, the sort of comfort clothes he would never allow anyone to see on him, but Mark doesn't really see it. He notices Wardo's hair, though, which is insanely wild and thick and morning-ish, and it makes something shift uncomfortably inside him.

"Mark," Eduardo breathes, and he's not really over the shock yet. He has this feeling he might never recover. "What—Jesus, what do you want?"

"Red Vines," Mark tells him, honestly, without missing a beat. "I finished my last packet. Do you have any?"

It's a perfectly good excuse for a two-hours walk across the city on a Thursday morning, really. It's not like he asked if Wardo had any sugar to spare, that would've been insane.

"No," Eduardo says, and he's closing the door. Because he doesn't have time for this bullshit, and Mark screwed him over, betrayed his trust, took his money, hurt his pride, whatever.

"Are you sure? You always keep some."

Eduardo thinks, _I always kept some for you, asshole._ Mark thinks, _Facebook should have a face recognition function._

Eduardo, exhausted, pinches the bridge of his nose between two fingers.

"Mark, is this the best you can do? Really?"

Mark shrughs. Wardo knows it really, really is.

"It's working, Wardo. You're talking to me, and you haven't hit me or my laptop." He hasn't given him any Red Vines yet, either, but it's okay, they're still… not okay.

Eduardo gets insanely angry at that; Mark can be so fucking _infuriating_ , and he has no idea because he doesn't _care_ —he cared enough to come all the way here, though, and just like that, Eduardo deflates.

All right.

"I'll see you on Monday, Mark," he says, defied. Mark shuffles on his feet, uncertain; does this mean they're not not okay anymore?

Probably not. Wardo made it clear—laptop-crashing clear—that he's angry and hurt and probably still regrets the day he first sit opposite to that pale, sleep-deprived guy in Harvard's cafeteria; it's going to take him some time.

Mark is very, really sorry—once again, he has no better word for it. He's still kind of angry at Wardo for almost killing TheFacebook before its time, but it doesn't mean he wants him out of the project, out of the company, out of his life. And it's obvious, isn't it?

Wardo looks up at him from under his insanely long lashes for another moment, and it's probably good that he doesn't seem to want to murder him with his eyes; he doesn't slam the door shut, either, instead it closes with a soft, sort of hesitant click.

* * *

Eduardo doesn't bring any Red Vines to the lawsuit on Monday, but he looks uncomfortable and tired, maybe he's starting to regret this; Mark has been coding inside his head since he got up from bed this morning, but he stops the moment they meet in front of the table, to politely shake hands before their attorneys jump at each other's throats.

"I slept three hours," Mark says as a greeting. What he's trying to tell Wardo is that he really misses him, because Dustin isn't nearly as good as Wardo is at keeping track of his sleep schedule.

Eduardo is trying so hard to hate him, really; mostly, though, he ends up hating himself, because he knows Mark so well, and he _knows_.


End file.
